More Deleted Scenes coming on TNG Blu-rays!

Deleted scenes have often been thought of as the holy-grail for fans of Star Trek. For decades we’ve been teased of their existence by the likes of Larry Nemecek’s Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion and the original shooting scripts (available at TrekCore). It wasn’t until last year’s release of Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season Two on Blu-ray that we finally got to see deleted scenes from TNG in the form of an extended cut of Melinda Snodgrass’ “The Measure of a Man”. The extended episode was carefully pieced back together by CBS using an old VHS tape belonging to Melinda as reference. At the same time, the team happened upon some lost footage from “The Icarus Factor” and “Up the Long Ladder” which was included on the Blu-ray release.

Last month TrekCore hit the jackpot and stumbled across an internet posting from Star Trek fan Cyril Paciullo who had in his possession a total of seven “workprint” copies of TNG episodes from Seasons 2-4 on VHS. These episodes featured numerous deleted scenes, and we’re in the process of going through the episodes one-by-one to bring you full analysis and video of the extra footage (Check out the articles for “The Wounded” and “The Child” if you haven’t already!) We immediately made CBS aware of the discoveries and while too late for Seasons Two and Three, we’re told that some of the new footage will make it on to the release of Season Four this July. TrekCore also understands that CBS may considering releasing footage which was missed from earlier seasons on later sets (perhaps Seasons Six and Seven).

The discovery of these deleted scenes has caused quite a stir amongst fans, leading one of our readers to ask about their inclusion at the recent Wondercon Convention in Anaheim, California. TrekCore’s Tom Bateman was there to catch the answer from Mike and Denise Okuda, Brannon Braga and Roger Lay, Jr.

Brannon Braga confirmed what many have already suspected for a long time – often episodes had a large amount of footage cut for time:

…there are many cases where an episode comes in long and you may not want to cut anything. That’s where you get into some juicy stuff if you can find it. Most of it’s lost to history. There are plenty of Star Trek episodes where we cut as much as eight minutes… twelve minutes out of the show and there was some good stuff in there.

Roger Lay, Jr. confirms that the team are very aware of the desire for deleted scenes and are actively searching:

That’s something that we really have on the radar right now. We’re looking for a lot of stuff. We have an idea for some material for Season Four and Season Five, and we’re just working on getting it now and rebuilding it.

Sources have told TrekCore that CBS are actively pursuing the hunt for deleted scenes, with Mike and Denise Okuda now tasked with poring over old scripts to try to identify which scenes were filmed but cut for time. We’ve been advised that CBS are trying to locate these scenes in the original camera negative but don’t have any plans at present to undertake the sort of restoration we saw on “The Measure of a Man”.

We’ll be continuing our “Workprint” special series shortly with a brand new article boasting almost 6 minutes of deleted scenes from the third season episode “The Bonding”. Stay tuned!

I must say, this is great! Really impressive work here guys. This certainly got the attention of CBS and it deserves it. Also looking forward to more workprint specials, keep it coming!

Lenonn

This could be the Trek equivalent of finding “lost” (i.e. unsaved from the BBC’s tape purge) Doctor Who episodes. Especially cool if there are any mentions of previously unknown Trek history and/or character development.

The intention was 3 seasons this year. Do the math and thats 4 months per season. That means that April is about as late as you can go for season 3. 2nd season of the year x 4 months=8 months =August which is the latest season 4 can go. So technically season 3 is pushing it on the late side, while season 4 is pushing it on the early side. I kind of hope they keep this up for next year. That would mean DS9 season 1 for Christmas. I ultimately think they will have to slow down though. Eventually DS9 switched to CGI, which is now completely useless and will have to be re-done. Those scenes are going to take time to re-do.

archer9234

They switched during the end point of season 5. They have 5 years of model photography. And countless stock shots to make it easy on them. Voyager will be the big headache. Now you made me think how the TOS Ent model would look in HD. From trials and tribble-asions.

ROThornhill

It will be great to see DS9 get the blu ray restoration treatment. I don’t know what resolution the CG scenes were created in originally, but I wonder whether we’ll see upscaled scenes like on the Enterprise blu rays, rather than new CG. I really hope they do find the time and money to redo the CG scenes with todays technology though. The series deserves it.

hypnotoad72

Amazon usually puts out pre-order requests, so if what you say is correct then their posting the upcoming availability is nigh…

There’s an interesting mention in the TNG 365 book that the FX scenes of the battle of Wolf 359 in DS9’s Emissary involved many more ships than we saw in the final episode. Apparently the VFX team assumed the scenes would be taking place in the middle of the battle, and included lots of wrecked starships floating across the screen. When they were told that the scene was set at the start of the battle, they had to go back and remove all these shipwrecks. It would be great if we could see these scenes as they were originally, if/when DS9 gets the blu ray treatment, as an easter egg perhaps. I guess the amount of work involved in compositing the extra ships might be prohibitive though.

archer9234

As long as the effect elements where fully shot (they could be incomplete since they where pulled during editing), stored and are able to be found. It could be done as a alternate effect bonus scene. But it couldn’t be inserted into the final episode. Since it wouldn’t make any sense.

The extra scenes that we’ve uncovered in the VHS tapes so far are probably buried someplace in the vaults, yes, but without a specific knowledge of (a) their existence [as in, it was in the script but cut, does that mean it was filmed or just written out?], and (b) all the needed elements required to put the scenes together, some of this stuff could be “lost” forever because there’s not necessarily a “map” to find it.

The VHS tapes show not only that the scenes exist, but the video can help point to where the original negatives may reside in relation to the rest of the footage used in the broadcast version of the episode. That extended version of “The Measure of a Man” served exactly that purpose – it showed the restoration team that (a) the scenes were ACTUALLY filmed, (b) how the shots were originally cut together in those scenes, and (c) how those missing scenes fit back into the broadcast version of the episode.

Not to mention that every scene shot might have several different camera angles repeating the same dialogue (close-ups, wide shots, etc.), all which would need to be located to rebuild the original version of the scene. A cut scene in the script (say, “Act Two, Scene 23”) might use several-to-dozens of separate film elements which wouldn’t be reflected in the script.

Measure of a man is different because it wasn’t just deleted scenes, it was actually included into the episode. I guess I figured they were probably scanning everything in the vault. I wouldn’t mind a few deleted scenes without knowing which episode they belong to.

The only difference with ‘Measure of a Man’ is that they (a) had fewer episodes in S2 that they had room for a fully-rebuilt episode in the set, (b) they had so much footage to restore that the extra work was worth it, and (c) they had weeks-to-months of time to prepare the 60-minute cut. Otherwise, it’s the same situation.

pittrek

Makes perfect sense, thanks

Kyle

Isn’t there a deleted scene in BOBW were Locutus is regenerating then suddenly he screams and freaks out and Borg drones take him to the chamber where he gets his skin pigmentation drained?

It’s the scene right after Hanson promotes Riker to Captain. It’s supposed to lead into when Picard gets fully assimilated. It’s in there. If you follow those numbers to the left as you scroll down, the scene should be at number 10.